Sunday, March 23, 2014

Cherry Blossoms Skirt

Yesterday, I made the "One Hour Skirt" from Brett Bara's Sewing in a Straight Line. This is a great book for people, like me, who are new to sewing or need to brush up on their skills. There are a lot of great projects in it that look like they will teach you a lot.

While this skirt took me closer to three hours, instead of one as its name implies, that was more because I spent an inordinate amount of time staring at my fabric wondering how I was supposed to get two 22.5'' pieces of fabric from a 42'' width fabric, not accounting for the fact that I was cutting it from the length. Lalala, special moment there. I was surely not with it yesterday.

It also took me more than the one hour because I was reading every step carefully to make sure I understood it correctly because I did not want to destroy my beautiful fabric-so at least there's that. I also had some elastic that I had to put in 3 times because it kept slipping out-little pest! But I thought of a genius solution to that: Once you enter the end with the safety pin to slide through the casing-safety pin the other end to the fabric itself. Voila! No more end slipping into the casing where you can't grab it.

With this skirt, I learned a new skill: a French Seam. This seam is used in garments to encase the raw edge of fabric so it looks nicer and, and also keeps it from unraveling. It's really easy once you learn it, and now I can say "Yay! I have a new skill!"

I am really proud of this skirt and I can't wait to make more! I think I will experiment with lengths and fabric weights and get a whole collection for my closet And I bet it will be much faster next time. :)